Testing Our Nation's Waters

Water. It's among our nation's most vital resources, so why are we letting the technologies that monitor it stagnate?

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"The Dream" for many urbanites is to own a second home in the country. My grandfather had this dream and, I admit, I have it too. So you find a nice cottage with a great big lawn and are finally close to attaining the dream, but now you must ask: where does the water come from?

It most likely comes from the ground.

"Groundwater is one of the Nation's most important natural resources. It provides drinking water in both rural and urban communities. It supports irrigation and industry, sustains the flow of streams and rivers, and maintains ecosystems," says United Stated Geological Survey (USGS) Director Suzette Kimball.

Today however, much of our waters, lakes, streams and groundwater are polluted and we rely on modern tech to turn the tide. Now there won't be any Apple-style releases for the tools that measure water quality, but they are just as important as (if not more important than) the smartphone glued to your palm.

The United States began creating some of the marvels of water management as far back as the 1860s. New York City's gravity-fed system, for instance, essentially eradicated incidents of cholera in a 20 year span when it came online in the late 1800s. (See chart.)

The data in this chart comes from the New York City Department of Health and the Bureau of Vital Statistics. The decreasing incidents of cholera are directly correlated to the improvements in the water management system via the building of upstate aquifers and water tunnels into the City.

Given that history of innovation, I was curious about where we are today. Who tests our water and what cool tech do they use?

It turns out environmental engineers commonly use interface probes and a YSI water quality meter to monitor groundwater quality, specifically downstream from former large oil and gas plants.

Initially they measure the Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (LNAPL) level in an area targeted for treatment. LNAPL is a groundwater contaminant that is not soluble and has a lower density than water. This often includes petrochemicals like benzene, toluene, and other derivatives.

So imagine a case where there was an underground oil spill decades priorit's fairly common in the United States. Gallons of various types of oil now float atop the groundwater level beneath the surface of the earth. The LNAPL probe, attached to a measuring tape, extends down a monitoring well and emits a steady beep once it reaches the top of an oil layer. Drop it down a couple more inches and the steady beep turns intermittent once it reaches the oil/water boundary. With some simple calculations you now know the LNAPL thickness. Over time these numbers indicate how effective the engineers' treatment strategy has been. The less LNAPL, the more the engineers get paid.

Instead of measuring pH with litmus paper or dissolved oxygen concentrations using another arcane method, with the YSI you can get an instantaneous digital reading of groundwater quality parameters, saving hours. It can determine many things, such as if bacteria in the ground are working at an aerobic or an anaerobic pace to break down contaminants (different bugs break down different things), and if the quality of the water is physically harmful to touch (or drink). It can even conclude if the quality of water has changed over weeks or years, possibly signaling the presence of another chemical recently introduced to the mix.

You can set up the YSI for remote logging to take reading at any intervals, which will store on the display and download to a computer. The only drawback is that the devices are fairly heavy. Both the interface probe and the YSI could benefit from a lighter and more rugged redesign.

If you can judge a civilization based on how well it manages its resources, particularly water, can we afford to let the technologies that monitor our resources stagnate? We do so at our own peril.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin is a PCMag.com contributor. For over a decade has been a passionate voice for the planet and its people. He is the author of Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet and contributor to All-American: 45 American Men On Being Muslim. Ibrahim is a former sustainability policy advisor to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Outward Bound instructor. In 2002 he helped to found the Brooklyn Academy for Science and the Environment. Ibrahim has blogged since 2004 as the Brooklyn...
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